The PC Report

Have you heard people talking about Linux but had no idea what it was? Are you a full time Windows XP, Vista, or 7 user and can’t understand why anyone would want to use anything besides Windows? Or perhaps you are getting tired of dealing with the hassle that can come with Windows but you don’t know what to do about it? If you answered yes to any of these questions then this is something you should probably read. There is a lot to Linux. I will probably leave a lot out of  this article but, then again, this is not a comprehensive guide. This is just to give you a peek at Linux so you can decide if you want to try it out.

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Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) is only in the Alpha stage of testing at this moment. It doesn’t look extremely different from the current version of Ubuntu but there are a few noticeable differences.

I installed Lucid Lynx using VirtualBox OSE. Before I installed, I booted up from the LiveCD just to get a look at it to see if anything looked different. After a quick glance it looked just like most other recent Ubuntu releases. The background is a brown/orange color, the UI is gray, and everything is still set up the same.

It only took around 20 minutes to install on a virtual machine with just over 700 MB of RAM and a 2.16 GHz processor. I haven’t timed any of my other installations but this one seemed to be the fastest of them all. I decided to dig a little to find out what has been changed. The first things I checked were the applications.

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Like Linux and also want a small desktop PC? Try out the Open-PC Atom powered nettop designed specifically for those of you who use and love Linux. It comes with hardware that requires only completely free drivers and no proprietary software at all – an Atom N330 dual-core CPU at 1.6GHz, an ASrock motherboard, 3GB of RAM, Intel GMA950 graphics, a 160GB hard drive all in a mini-ITX case with 250W PSU. It also comes preloaded with a KDE-based Linux distro configured for the computer’s hardware.

The Open-PC will be available at the end of February for €359.

For everyone not using Windows, the wait to access Google’s Chrome as your web browser (officially) is now over, as Google has released a public beta for all you Mac OS X and Linux users. Unfortunately, the Mac/Linux versions aren’t as feature-filled as their Windows counterpart, but still carry enough features to make it a good enough browser to replace your current one.

While the speed and process per tab benefits of Chrome are in the Mac/Linux versions, things such as extensions, the bookmark manager and support for Google Gears are still missing. However it looks like the Mac Chrome edition integrates well with the OS X interface and utilises some key features such as native spell-check, keychain support and Mac-specific animations. The interface also fits in well with the overall Mac look, and the Linux version isn’t too bad either.

You can download the beta version of Chrome for Mac (OS X 10.5 or later) or Linux (Debian/Ubuntu/Fedora/openSUSE) from the respective downloads pages.

We were almost right when we said that Chrome OS was launching next week. Today, Google held a conference to announce and detail their latest and greatest venture into operating systems. While Chrome OS hasn’t been launched yet, and according to Google it won’t be for a long time with a public beta still a fair while away, we do get to see some solid pictures and demonstrations of Chrome in action.

First off, its seems like Chrome OS is almost completely web-based, with web applications integrating into the operating system to make it feel like they are real applications. This is all made possible by the features present in HTML5, which allow web applications to access local storage and other resources that a normal application would have access too. Also, even though Chrome OS is based off the Linux kernel, you wont be able to install applications via the kernel like you would in other Linux distros, instead you will have to run them through the “browser.”

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Red Hat have just announced the release of Fedora 12.

New in Fedora 12 is improved webcam support, improved video codecs, audio improvements, improved power management, an automatic bug reporting tool as well as a number of other enhancements (release notes).

You can download Fedora 12 here.

The most popular Linux distribution has now been updated in line with its biannual releases. Ubuntu 9.10, aka “Karmic Koala” as been released and ready for your download or upgrade, and if you use one of the other related distros such as Kubuntu, Xubuntu (etc.), you can grab the 9.10 updates for those as well. Karmic Koala comes with improvements to cloud computing and boot speed, as well as a large range of program updates.

Included with Ubuntu 9.10 are GNOME 2.28, Linux Kernel 2.6.31, GIMP 2.6, Firefox 3.5, OpenOffice 3.1, and the Empathy Instant Messenger replaces Pidgin as the default IM client. Ubuntu One is also included by default alongside the new Ubuntu Software Center that improves package management. Check out the full list of improvements at the Ubuntu website, or download the distro now.

We’re all sick of hearing the question “is Linux ready for the desktop?”. This has been asked for years, debated for years, and basically not much has changed for years. It’s time for the question to be improved to “will Linux ever become a popular choice?”.

The reality is that Linux has a poor market share, and something needs to change. According to Net Applications Linux’s market share is 0.95%, compared to nearly 93% for Windows and 5% for Mac. This structure has been virtually the same for a long time, although OSX has grabbed a tiny bit of Microsoft’s market share.

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If you are a fan or a user of Linux, specifically KDE, then you might be interested in the latest released of the desktop environment. While the update is mostly bug fixes, it is still worth getting so you are completely updated. Downloads are available from the KDE website.

For those who don’t know, KDE is a desktop environment for Linux that is used in many popular distributions such as Fedora, Kubuntu and openSUSE. It’s one of the most common environments, along with GNOME used in Ubuntu. Check out the screenshot above for what the interface is like.